The Winning Formula
Last season was a direct case of quantity over quality. Far too many signings did not prevail. This summer has felt more of the opposite. Despite wanting to throw myself off a cliff several times that is.
Importantly though, the big signings are being made and I’d rather it be now than not at all.
Bamford bags for fun at this level if played regularly. Then we have Barry Douglas, who with such a name, you just would not expect to have the wand of a left foot he has.
One of the interesting packages this pre-season has been Mateusz Klich. Klich was signed by Orta and then immediately froze out by Thomas Christiansen. This is the same bloke who thought Flappy Felix Wiedwald was a better choice than Rob Green.
Klich really has been playing well which makes me think he must have been sleeping with Christiansen’s wife to have been subdued like he was.
Some (and I highly emphasise some) Leeds fans have even praised Orta now for this business. You can see why. Douglas is easily considered to be the best left-back in the league and we have signed him for £3 million. £3 million!
Orta will always be at the forefront when it comes to signings. He is the Director of Football, so yeah that is kind of his job.
Is This Squad Ready?
It is fair to say that despite the excitement, there is still business to be done. Man City winger, Jack Harrison is set to join on loan from the Premier League champions.
Harrison struggled for game time at Boro last season but he is far too quick and far too young to be considered by Tony Pulis.
Most importantly, we really need a centre-back. So badly. We have two fit senior centre-backs in Pontus Jansson and Liam Cooper. Two. Bielsa wants to play with a back three and we have TWO centre-backs.
Bielsa has favoured using Berardi and even Kalvin Phillips in a back three but one gets injured and it’s very short. If you’ve seen Phillips’ new haircut you’ll find it hard to believe he won’t get at least five studs wrapped around him in the first game alone.
It has been reported in the last 24 hours that Ronaldo Vieira is making a shock move for Sampdoria. There has always been a lot of hype around Vieira, perhaps understandably. He hasn’t however performed over the last year and Klich is seemingly favoured.
Personally, for the club to sell him, I’d consider a disaster. A loan would perhaps be more suitable but there is a sense of wanting to balance the books up.
If you’d asked me last week, the prospect of facing a Stoke attack of McLean (I know), Afobe, and Ince frightened the life out of me. Maybe it still does a bit. At least we have some kind of dimension to our team now though.
Stoke will witness a very kind welcome back to the Championship next weekend that is for sure. Intriguing is the opening game and it will be interesting to see how Stoke cope. A certainty is, if Leeds do prevail this season, we are going to be absolutely unbearable to other fans.
